Local login broken, help!

I need some guidance to fix a self inflicted problem here. I'm using SuSE 6.1 on a machine that is my firewall between the adsl modem and LAN. It has the 2.2.14 kernel update, but no lx_suse for that kernel. While trying to update or install enough packages to be able to compile a new kernel, I somehow broke login from the local console (tty). I can, however log in using ssh from other machines on the LAN. When I try to login on the local console, I get the message "Login incorrect". Any insites? Regards, Dave Emory